French Popular Front defeated

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He is the main architect of the strategy of "Centre-Left" governments through which, from 1963 onwards, the Christian Democratic party has tried to head-off the offensive of the Italian working class.

Moro was Prime Minister in five different governments and has occupied almost all the major government posts.

He remains as one of the chief suspects for being "Antelope", the code name of the senior minister implicated in the Lockheed bribes scandal but never publicly identified.

But such is the level of corruption of Christian Democratic politicians in Italy that these suspicions have not stopped him being at present President of the Christian Democratic Party and the most likely candidate to become President of Italy in the elections to be held in six months time.

Threat to In capturing Moro the "Red Brigades" have, as they themselves claim, "carried the attack to the heart of the state"

Moro's chances of becoming President now look pretty slender as his captors have threatened to kill him if the state authorities do not release the 14 alleged leaders oi the "Red Brigades" now on trai in Turn.

In ridrapping Moro, the =: Brigades" say they are to come from deeply misguided sections of the ultraleft-though the possibility of right-wing provocations cannot be ruled out.

But it is not the left but the terrorists of the right-the fascist bands and sections of the state apparatus—who carry responsibility for the mounting atmosphere of physical terror which dominates Italy.

Violence, arbitrary arrest and harrassment are to be expected against any left wing or labour movement militant in Italy from repressive state apparatus which is riddled with fascists.

Against these attacks, the Stalinist Communist Party has consistently sabotaged any efforts to build independent workers' defence.

It has done the opposite. It has been the most bellicose advocate of intensifying the repression by the bourgeois state apparatus. shame that the Morning Star reported the scandalous fact that:

"for the first time for 30 years... there were there together with the red flags of the Communist and Socialist parties and the trade unions thousands of white flags with the shields of the Christian Democrats"

Total betrayal

At the same time in a grotesque prostitution of the strides joined in thracising CP-led token protest stoppages of work in the factories-though organised in such a way that they would not affect production or the bosses' profits.

The calling of strikes in support of repression by the bourgeois state is appropriately one of the first acts of the CP in its new role as an acknowledged party of the governmental majority It is an expression of the party's total betrayal of the class it claims to lead.

Party theoretician Napolitano once again made this explicit when he said last week:

'We do not want a Communist Italy; we want a democratic and progressive Italy"

That, as he knows, is a euphemism for the Italy of exploitation, corruption and repression-Andreotti's Italy, Moro's Italy, capitalist Italy, the CP's Italy.

As we go to press, all but four of the results have been declared in the second round of the French General Election.

It is quite clear that the bourgeois parties hav maintained a substantial majority of some 90 seats.

This is a sizeable drop in their former parliamentary power, but does not reflect the full extent of the gains made by the workers' parties.

The French electoral system exaggerates small majorities in a percentage of total votes cast to give a "working" majority in Parliament.

CP blamed

The Communist Party has been blamed for these results the "left" Radicals.

Fabre also announced that his bourgeois party was now withdrawing from the Union of the Left.

Both the Socialist Party and the Communist party, the other two components of this Popular Front formation have gained 14 seats apiece.

But this is a far cry from their confident predictions during the election campaign that the left" would win a historic victory.

Assessment

In the event, the party which made the largest gain was the UDF-a loose coalition bundled together in support of President Giscard d'Estaing.

Their progress largely compensated for the big losses of Chirac's Gaullist grouping, the RPR.

The next edition of Socialist Press will carry a full assessment of the French elections and their significance for the international workers' movement.

LEAGUE

Public Meeting Thursday April 6, 1978 7.30pm at Mitre Hotel Dale Street Liverpool "Fight redundancies, fight closures-Our policy to defend jobs" spoke that Callaghan had cynically suppressed policy papers on the budget drawn up by the Party's National Executive-with the clear objective of preventing any discussion on alternative proposals for either the budget or the manifesto for the next election.

So while NEC member and Merseyside MP Eric Heffer twitters on harmlessly in Taunton about the need to fight the effects of "a greedy, selfish, capitalist society" and calls for a minister to be made responsible for unemployment on Merseyside, Callaghan is ruthlessly trampling even the puniest opposition.

Only a socialist programme centred on nationalisation of the major industries and the banks without compensation and under workers management can provide the planned programme of useful public works needed to end unemployment.

Inability

But the prerequisite for such a programme is to break the Lib-Lab coalition deal that is the capitalist class' guarantee against socialism, and remove the reactionary Callaghan-Healey Benn and his fellow 'lefts' have time and again shown their refusal and their inability to conduct such a fight.

In demanding that they take a stand now against Callaghan, workers must not in any way rely on them conducting such a fight.

Redundancies and closures must be fought in each case by factory occupation and the demand for work-sharing on full payarticle, p. 10}